When you run a business or work for yourself, the success of the business is dependent upon your ability to stay focused and move forward consistently.
Unfortunately, with so much resting on one’s own ability to make business progress, small business owners may find themselves stuck in a rut and unable to break through it on their own. Such was a case with a client I’ll call Jon…
Jon felt as if he’d been swimming upstream in his engineering practice this past year and it was exhausting. A colleague had recently retired and passed along some projects to him. Although he welcomed the additional business, the projects weren’t very lucrative and Jon felt as if he was putting in a lot of effort for very little return.
The additional work-load put stress on his already delicate infrastructure, which consisted of himself and a recently hired assistant. Although he was slowly delegating more work to his new hire, Jon was still was handling the invoicing, bookkeeping, proposals as well as the main engineering work himself.
He was very short of cash, owed payroll taxes and was falling behind in the rent on his office. If only he would spend some time sending out invoices, he could get in some money to pay the bills. But he just didn’t seem to be able to get them done.
Jon needed more work, particularly work that was lucrative and interesting. He knew he had to get out there more and do some outreach, but whenever a potential networking opportunity arose, he made a million different excuses why he couldn’t take advantage of it. In recent weeks, he felt himself shutting down. Although he spent long hours at his desk and for the most part knew what had to be done, he was accomplishing very little. He felt overwhelmed, immobilized and stressed.
When we first spoke, it was clear that there were a bunch of things going on beneath the surface that were undermining progress and keeping him stuck in an unproductive place. Here’s what we did:
1. We identified the emotions that were holding him back. Fear was a big one, specifically fear of failure. We examined what may have contributed to this fear. In Jon’s case it was an overly critical parent for whom nothing was ever good enough. And because fears are often worse than reality, we looked at worst case scenarios which helped Jon realize that taking action wasn’t as risky as he had thought.
2. We put some structure into place by setting up a specific schedule for when things were to be done and by whom.
3. We determined what tasks Jon should be doing and what to delegate or outsource. Getting the invoicing, bookkeeping and proposals off his plate resulted in better cash flow, gave Jon more time, focus and energy to do the work he does best, and removed some obstacles that were keeping him immobilized.
4. And, we put some accountability into place to help Jon develop the discipline he needed to stay on track and make consistent progress.
If you’re feeling stuck in your business, click here to schedule a time to speak with me and learn how I can help.
Susan Martin Business Coaching
